Irate Chinese travellers hold airplane protest

HONG KONG: Furious Chinese passengers refused to leave a plane at Hong Kong airport for several hours until they were paid compensation for flight delays, an airline spokeswoman said Thursday. The protest sit-in began when the Hong Kong Airlines plane landed around 5.30am local time on Wednesday from Singapore, airline spokeswoman Eva Chan told AFP. The Airbus 330 carrying 159 passengers had been delayed in Singapore for almost nine hours due to a technical fault and a fracas between two groups of passengers which left an old Chinese women with an injured hand. "Some of the passengers weren't happy with our compensation policy and they showed their anger. Actually it was quite a mess," Chan said of the incident at the boarding gate in Singapore. The airline offered the passengers HK$400 (US$51) each by way of compensation but 80 of them rejected the offer and refused to le...